Saturday, April 28, 2012

Day 8 - Done Deal.

Today is the first day that the Wild Thing hasn't asked for TV. He misses it, and he doesn't understand why he can't watch it but I'm happy that he's finally getting used to the idea. I'm loving the new and improved Wild Thing! He's a completely different kid. He plays quietly by himself, he'll sit down and talk to you or play a game, he follows the rules, he cleans up after himself, and the melt downs have dramatically decreased. It's not just effected his energy level but his emotional level too. Another surprise... no potty accidents. He hasn't had a single accident since the shut off. I'd tried to do some research on it, a quick google search on "how TV effects a child's brain", and the information that I found was mostly about ADD and the same information that I previously provided in Day 0 about the neurological effect that they are now calling "the flicker effect". The change has been so dramatic that I believe the experiment is concluded. I'm totally convinced at this point that the TV needs to be shut off permanently. Wonderful and I have talked about maybe doing a movie night once a week, but we still need to do the 30 days and break the habit completely first. I will admit that the TV or PBS for that matter, does have one benefit that I miss, and that's the information that they provide. He learned so much about reading from Super Why and so much about Dinosaurs from Dinosaur Train. I took him to the Natural History Museum yesterday to learn about Dinosaurs because I didn't want his education to stop just because I turned off the TV. I need to step up my game in the education department and learn how to teach my kids. Darn it to hell for kids not coming with a manual!! Hopefully we can find some help in this department at our local library. Just to add... he's now 60% calmer. I might have to rename the kiddos now. Twinkle Toes has become the wild one. She's into everything!!!

I'm not going to continue to do a daily update on the shut off, but I will post one more time about it on Day 30 and reflect back on the changes.